Yesterday was a beautiful morning, so we drove to town, stopped at our favorite coffee shop for take-n-go drinks and took off.
Took off for a drive up a nearby mountain pass. The spring melt has the rivers flowing at near peak capacity.
Fresh Mountain River
The morning air, fresh and cool, offers the fragrance of spring. One could smell the earth, the heat generating from the rocks and the moisture in the shade under the trees. The sound of the water racing downhill, roaring over rock walls, splash landing at the base before flowing into the river filled the air. In one location, the cool spray carried gently by the breeze, brushed against my face.
The roar of water, rushing and gushing downhill
In another location, we sat nearby and absorbed the sensations of being by water, out in nature.
Honestly, at one site, I got dizzy sitting there. We were in the truck, parked close to the river’s edge. The sights and sounds were relaxing, refreshing yet simultaneously invigorating. As I sat and watched the water, I got the sense the vehicle was moving. It wasn’t. Yet the water was so intense, so fast and so mesmerizing, I lost track of everything else.
Are we moving?
Perhaps these photos will take you to these places also…
I’ve been part of a “Writing Through the Pandemic” group. It’s been an interesting process which sometimes surprises me at what surfaces. You can find some these writing on my blog under the following menu options: “Writing Categories” and then select “Pandemic”. Feel free to leave your comments or write your own thoughts.
Together, we’ll get through this!
New Buds Growing
Everything is a process
Processes have invisible strands that tie the pieces together
For me the process started in late spring of 2019
Spending 10 weeks in the southwest of Ireland and England left me shaken
The recognition of my own materialism hit hard
The crazy pace of my life was revealed as just that—crazy
I tried to share those revelations upon returning home
My friends looked at me with that dazed look you give one when you think they’ve lost it
I still made little sense of this
I was trying to process it
Or figure out what it meant for me
Another trip to Ireland in early 2020 reinforced these thoughts and cemented relationships there
I arrived back to my home in Colorado just as Covid-19 was being openly talked about, but before any lockdowns
The lockdown has given me the time, and space to process those thoughts birthed in 2019
Given me the opportunity to be at peace with experiencing a relaxed schedule
Provided opportunities to have communications with friends and family scattered around the globe and revealed the shared trauma of this pandemic
No one wonders “why” someone is concerned—at least not in my circle
It’s my hope we will come through this fear, into love and thus come alive
Come alive to the purposes created for each of us
Ah, but first we have to recognize and acknowledge those purposes
I suspect that revelation process will be different for each of us
Some may even fight these truths, preferring instead to return to what was
My pragmatic side knows this and thus expects the “coming through” will not necessarily allow us to land in a “happy place”
There will be “happy places” but also some rough patches
There may be some friends cemented for life, but also some lost
I hope I can cling to the values learned through this process
I hope to make them an integral part of me
I hope more of us find the “happy place” and can affect and influence those still searching
I hope we will release the aspects of life that were—let them drift into a space of “what was”
And thus be able to allow those conditions to remain in that space.
Journey to the Heights 